When a device such as a personal video recorder (PVR) processes multimedia data it receives from a telecommunications carrier, the multimedia data must be processed at a particular data rate. One or more packets may be processed by the PVR for one or more reasons. For example, the one or more packets may be processed when generating an index table for the PVR, in which the index table may be used to quickly index a program stored in a hard disk drive of the PVR. Unfortunately, when one or more packets require long processing times, packet processing may be affected, resulting in congestion within the data pipeline. This may have a significant effect on data flow through the data pipeline. Similarly, a digital video recorder (DVR) or a set-top box may exhibit this type of congestion when it processes one or more packets. The limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.